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I am saying that we do not have a huge poor class, yes. We don't. We're a very wealthy country, and the number of people who are poverty-stricken is very small compared to the number of people who are well-off or getting by.

Sorry to not respond sooner, but I wasn't at my computer.

But... why is just "getting by" satisfactory in a nation that is supposed to be the greatest on earth (as I constantly hear from the Right)?

Because they support what is touted as Republican ideology. In a nutshell, this includes Christian religious values on one hand, and a Capitalistic society with a minimum of government interference on the other. There's also a mild slant towards maintaining the status quo, moving backwards, or moving forwards more slowly, depending on which group of Republicans you deal with.

Often, a person will be a Republican just because they support one of these as their strongest value, and is willing to ignore the other implications. Note well that more attention is payed to ideology than actual effects.

There's little choice in this, because the actual effects of a policy are complicated and based on so many variables that most people can't understand why things happen a certain way. Also, if people actually understood what the best choice was from moment to moment, they would support different measures from moment to moment as well... and then what the party believed would become too complicated for most people.

This works for Democrats too, actually. The difference is that they stand for social progressiveness and freedom on one hand, and more Government regulation of the economy on the other. The opposite of the Republicans.

In other words, people don't support parties because of the results of their actions. People support them because of what the parties ideology represents to them, and what meshes with their value systems.

This is a very gross generalization, of course. The point is, most people only focus on one half of their parties picture, and are willing to let the other half go either way, tending not to focus on the implications of it.

So, to answer your question... the average Republican F probably thinks they are good people because they're working to stamp out immorality. And from a certain perspective, they are. But from another, they're not. It's all up to interpretation, really.

But... why is just "getting by" satisfactory in a nation that is supposed to be the greatest on earth (as I constantly hear from the Right)?

Curious as to your opinion.

Because different people have different talents that are rewarded with different levels of remuneration. Any attempt to level the economic results in a free economy invariably end up wrecking economic growth and innovation.